us assemblies of the patrimonial
provinces, one after another, exhausted, frightened, and hoping that no
serious effort would be made to collect the tax, consented, under certain
restrictions, to its imposition.--The principal conditions were a protest
against the legality of the proceeding, and the provision that the
consent of no province should be valid until that of all had been
obtained. Holland, too, was induced to give in its adhesion, although the
city of Amsterdam long withheld its consent; but the city and province of
Utrecht were inexorable. They offered a handsome sum in commutation,
increasing the sum first proposed from 70,000 to 200,000 florins, but
they resolutely refused to be saddled with this permanent tax. Their
stout resistance was destined to cost them dear. In the course of a few
months Alva, finding them still resolute in their refusal, quartered the
regiment of Lombardy upon them, and employed other coercive measures to
bring them to reason. The rude, insolent, unpaid and therefore
insubordinate soldiery were billeted in every house in the city, so that
the insults which the population were made to suffer by the intrusion of
these ruffians at their firesides would soon, it was thought, compel the
assent of the province to the tax. It was not so, however. The city and
the province remained stanch in their opposition. Accordingly, at the
close of the year (15th. December, 1569) the estates were summoned to
appear within fourteen days before the Blood Council. At the appointed
time the procureur-general was ready with an act of accusation,
accompanied, as was usually the case, with a simultaneous sentence of
condemnation. The indictment revived and recapitulated all previous
offences committed in the city and the province, particularly during the
troubles of 1566, and at the epoch of the treaty with Duchess Margaret.
The inhabitants and the magistrates, both in their individual and public
capacities, were condemned for heresy, rebellion, and misprision. The
city and province were accordingly pronounced guilty of high treason,
were deprived of all their charters, laws, privileges, freedoms, and
customs, and were declared to have forfeited all their property, real and
personal, together with all tolls, rents, excises, and imposts, the whole
being confiscated to the benefit of his Majesty.

The immediate execution of the sentence was, however, suspended, to allow
the estates opportunity to reply. An en